strawberry
by chi-zu
Summary: Willow thought magic could take her away from herself (post-Lessons)


11.02.2002  
  
Title: strawberry   
Author: chi-zu  
Spoilers: through Lessons  
Synopsis: Willow thought magic could take her away from herself  
Disclaimers: I don't own anything except my words.  
Distribution: Ask me.  
Feedback: Yes please. chi-zufic@hotpop.com  
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"Sister Moon says: Blessed be! Come to the Festival of Gaia, meditations, bacchanals, and interpretive dance!"  
  
Willow had forgotten all about her subscription to the Wicca Group newsletter. She'd signed up in the first flush of orientation excitement way back when. Heck, she'd signed up for the Juggling Club and the Campus Crusade for Christ, and anything with a clipboard and a pencil. She'd unsubscribed from those soon enough, but she'd been genuinely interested in Wicca Group, picturing a sisterhood of witches in white robes, linking hands and channeling the primeval forces by the light of the moon. When she'd discovered that they were all pretty much just a bunch of wanna-blessed-be's, she'd been too busy to think of little things like taking herself off the mailing list because there had been speechlessness and Ozlessness and people's hearts cut out, tidily embalmed in little glass jars, their screams locked away tight in a box. Then there had been Tara, soft, and round and inviting, fingers creeping to weave themselves with hers, and she'd felt a surge of light, warm, strong, and insistent. It filled the -less and she'd felt more. Powerful. Special. So really, missives from Wicca-land were low priority. And later, in between world save-age, she and Tara had looked forward to the weekly broadcasts from the abandoned sisterhood and laughed at their menstrual forces, drippy candles, and empowering lemon bundts.  
  
Empowering.  
  
They had no idea what it meant to be empowered. To touch something, huge, feel it ripple and flex beneath your hand. That secret, wild delight when it did all that rippling and flexing because *you* said so. They knew nothing of the euphoric rush of power, nor of the cold, frozen fear that came with touching something bigger, badder, and more wicked than yourself and finding that you weren't. That in the end, you were only touching Willow. And really, how could you touch something bigger than yourself if you were only touching you?  
  
"In the end, we all are who we are, no matter how we appear to have changed." Giles' words ran around her head in tiny, redundant circles.  
  
And that was the problem wasn't it? She'd thought that magic was an out, an escape from having to be herself. Mousy Willow, with her squeaky voice and fuzzy sweaters and who was very seldom naughty. Black mojo was a far better disguise than any red henna dye or Earth Mother ponchos. Free and untethered, she was everywhere and nowhere, flying faster than flying until she couldn't see Willow anymore, an infinitesimal speck she left behind as she hurtled towards the great, glittering, beyond.  
  
Only Willow was always there, meek and creeping around the corner with her mealy-mouthed worries, waiting to be crashed down into. So she drank in more of Rack's black juice through her fingertips and her toes and the hard, shiny spot on her chest. It roared through her, like wine on her tongue, and sang nasty little lullabies, nursery rhymes for very bad, very naughty children. But the more of it she swallowed, the more it tasted like strawberries, the more it sounded like mice.   
  
Then, oh then, did Willow scream.  
  
But that was all over now, she reminded herself. One shell-pink finger, scrubbed clean and smelling of apple-blossom soap clicked the mouse as she deleted the newsletter. She'd spent everything in one big, really destructive shopping spree, tried to buy the end of the world with her juice and gone bankrupt. She didn't have that kind of power anymore.   
  
The tiny voices in the back of her head chanted a little sing-song, "Liar, liar, liar..."  
  
Willow shut the computer off. 


End file.
